Gospel begins at the end of Jesus’ baptism. Jesus fully entered into our nature at baptism so that we may enter into his. We participate in him as he in us. Like iron put in the fire the fire enters into the nature so that within us the fire may dwell. He also entered into all that besets man, he must penetrate into all.
Baptism thus became for us the first conversion to our God, but every Lent is a time to renew that as well as a time to see how and when we have neglected and pulled away. We see what all is the great abyss between us and God.
Man is constantly beset by the reality that on our own, without the help of God, there is a gap between us and God we can’t fully cross. God is the central question to all of this. He has decided in his love to come to us, to be a bridge. Its his way that is opened. Pope Benedict says that the real heart of these temptations, and the temptations that beset all of man, is ‘moral posturing’. We don’t outright deny God, we just look and say there is a better way.
1st temptation: bread- a good God in the face of these other goods. It can be easy to say the greatest good are these things, and the greatest evil is their absence. There can be sin in overindulging in eating or drinking too much. Food is good, freedom is better, but freedom with a purpose is the best.
2nd temptation: bow down and worship him. Power on earth without the power of heaven is fragile and fickled. Only when power is united with God does it have its goodness. Or else it is power to abuse. What savior will Jesus be? Will he be the revolutionary What ever image of Jesus we have, that is what impacts our faith. Do we think Jesus would stake up against the politics of this world. How do we think or want the savior of the world to do and to be?
3rd: to make God something we have to prove he has to prove himself if he is good, if he is really God. Showing and the signs. We decide what God can and will do. The relation of God is no longer one of love and relationship but one of proof and experiment. We have already put ourselves above God. Jesus has already descended.